Sports: Water Cooler Stories

Fellas, the "Monday Morning Couch Potatoes" feel your pain. We understand that sometimes in life, you have to make sacrifices. We've all been there before. Spent Saturday night watching Breaking and Entering with the lady instead of at the bar with the boys? Picked the kids up from the dance recital instead of watching the big game? It's OK. It happens. That's where we come in.

At the start of every week, the "Monday Morning Couch Potatoes" (Peter Schrager and Adam Weinberg) will fill you in on the important things you missed while trying to pretend like you really care about all the other stuff in your life. Each Monday, you will wake up with an up-to-date summary of all the vital (and worthless) things you might have missed in the past week of sports and entertainment.

These are the six stories that sparked our interest the most during the past week of sports, pop culture and entertainment. This article, and every one of its biweekly successors, will serve as a "cheat sheet" for the various conversations you will have with coworkers and friends over the upcoming week.

So get educated, then hit up the water cooler for some conversation with the boys from accounts receivable.

Water Cooler Topic #1

Favre 4-ever

A little more than a month after his heroic Week 17 victory over the Bears, Brett Favre has announced that he is returning to the NFL for another campaign with the winning sports city of Green Bay. The Packers were one of the league’s surprises in 2006; they went 8-8 and nearly snuck into the playoffs. Green Bay has the 16th pick in the upcoming NFL Draft.

Adam’s take: I am actually glad that Brett Favre is back for another sports season. Nobody spices up a sports bet or a fantasy football matchup like the old Gunslinger himself. Show me another quarterback who can follow up a 45-yard touchdown strike with three straight mind-numbing interceptions that were thrown into double coverage. If the Packers are destined to have another mediocre campaign in 2007, at least let them do it with the schizophrenic flair of Mr. Favre behind center.

Pete’s take: Great, now there’s another worthless sports T-shirt floating around the world. Like any “Super Bowl Champion” shirt that was made prior to the game and proclaims the losing team as the victor, there’s a Brett Favre retirement shirt that’s owned by 80,000 Green Bay fans. Fans received T-shirts that read “Brett Favre: 1992-2006, Thanks for the Memories” at the Packers-Vikings Week 16 game at Lambeau Field. Well, what now? Do you Wite-Out the ”6” and Sharpie in a “7”? My guess is that you should throw it into your closet along with the shirt that names the 2006 Detroit Tigers as the World Series Champions.

Bets of the week

Water Cooler Topic #2

NBA All-Star roster

When the NBA All-Star teams were announced on February 1st, the league’s leading scorer was left on the outside looking in. Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony, who has been averaging 31.7 points per game for the first time in his three-year NBA career, was left off of the Western Conference All-Star team. The 2003 overall No. 3 pick missed 15 games earlier this season due to suspension.

Adam’s take: I bet Carmelo Anthony felt like he got sucker punched when he heard the news that despite being the NBA’s leading scorer, his name was omitted from the sport's Western Conference All-Star roster. Talk about getting a taste of his own medicine. Carmelo’s punch-and–run tactic during a melee against the New York Knicks this year was so shameful that it made Marty McSorley’s stick to the head look classy. While something tells me that David Stern will give into temptation and put the electrifying Anthony on the court in Las Vegas, it would be encouraging to see the commissioner put his foot down. Unless Jeff Van Gundy is hanging from your right leg, fighting in basketball is never a good idea.

Pete’s take: While Carmelo Anthony’s omission from the Western Conference All-Star team is generating a lot of media attention, I’d like to make the case for Michael Redd. Before going down with an injury in early January, the Bucks were the seventh seed in the East and Redd was the league’s fifth leading scorer. Without Redd, Milwaukee has played uninspired ball and gone 3-13, sinking to 16-42. Somehow, however, they’re still in the thick of the playoff race. The NBA’s Eastern Conference, ladies and gentlemen, is putting a new spin on “futility,” one mediocre sports team at a time.

Some Super Bowl XLI stats and The Messengers reins supreme at the box office…